Increasingly, mobile users move between physical locations with the same computing device. Ideally, users of these devices would prefer the machines to adapt seamlessly to those locations; but, the current systems are, for the most part, not capable of doing this. This is especially true when the user attempts to log on to different networks at these locations. Computing devices require the adjustment of numerous settings and in many systems, it relies on the user to manually adjust these settings upon moving to different locations, such as for example, to and from home, work, a client site, coffee shop, and/or an airport.
To further complicate the situation, in many computing environments the operating system and machine settings are scattered in various control panels (“CPLs”) throughout the system, often in distinct and incompatible graphical user interfaces. In most instances, these settings are not in obvious and discoverable locations. For example, one software application may require the user to first execute the entire application, select an options menu and manually adjust a setting, while another may still then require the user to adjust another related setting in a central settings depot, such as Control Panel in Microsoft® Windows® operating system. Indeed, even once a user accesses Control Panel, they must still navigate through numerous options to alter the desired setting.
Not only are the required settings tedious to adjust, but a user's interests and expectations from the computing device may vary depending on the physical location of the machine. For example, a user may desire to have different desktop backgrounds or internet favorites at home than when using the same device in an office environment.
Previous attempts to solve this problem have not adequately predicted the user's location or often are not precise enough to differentiate among locations.